The Last of Us' art director discusses the game's focus and art style

At a recent pre-E3 PlayStation event in Los Angeles I got a chance to check out The Last of Us for a second time and speak with the game’s art director from Naughty Dog, Eric Pangilinan.

We discussed Toronto, Mississauga and most importantly, The Last of Us.

Q: With the dropping so close to the release of the PlayStation 4, is there any concern within the development team that it won’t get the attention it deserves? Some gamers will be more interested in games coming out on the PS4 than titles coming out at the end of the PS3’s life cycle.

Eric Pangilinan: …Naughty Dog has always released really good quality products regardless of what platform it’s on. I think the PS3 still has a lot of life in it. We’ve managed to show this with uncharted stuff and then The Last of Us looks beautiful.

I think if there was no PS4, we could take another stab at this and improve on the graphics more. I don’t think it really affects it because what you’re going to get, it doesn’t matter if this was on PS2, it’s going to be a good game… We wouldn’t be dependent on the technology. The whole story and the experience, the gameplay, it’s all very well made.

Q: Can you say anything about the PS4? What do you think of it?

Eric Pangilinan: Honestly, I have been focused so much on this game. I mean we just finished this (laughs). This is all I’ve lived and breathed so I’d be lying if I said anything about it.

Q:The Last of Us seems to have a really distinct style too it, especially within the third-person action genre.

Eric Pangilinan: What I like about our game is we’re trying to show America this time. Previous games we’ve put together (the Uncharted series) are more about globe trotting. This time we tried to focus on American culture, show off an American city and what is distinctly American.

During the second half of the demo, a group of other survivors attack Joel and Ellie.

We also show a lot of branding and design. If you look around the world, we try to make it look as realistic as possible with a lot of the details.

Q:That’s something I noticed a lot, the little subtleties in the game. I really enjoyed exploring the old record store. Was stuff like this important to include in the game?

Eric Pangilinan: Yea, all of those covers (the record covers) are made from scratch… Those don’t exist in reality, but you have to create that kind of culture in the world. That’s the big thing about that small town (from the playable demo) you have to show an entire community in a small area with different aspects of life. What does that look like in an American town?

What kind of washing machine, what kind of signage do they use, what kind of brands of soap. When you go into a convenience store, what does an ice cooler look like. All over the world it’s a little different (maybe Canada is a little similar though). If you go to Asia our Europe, cars are different and so are the beer and cigarettes and things like that…

Q: Was it a nice change to concentrate on one location? I know you mentioned before that with the Uncharted series, your games were always globetrotting to various locations.

Eric Pangilinan : It’s more of a culture really. We’re now trying to show more of America and focus on what is America. A lot of things when you look at it tap into your memory of a child like, “I had one of those or yea I grew up in a town like this.” I travel quite a bit and there are a lot of things that are just very American.

Taking out every enemy is a struggle and that’s why The Last of Us’ combat feels fresh.

Q: How did you approach taking a modern environment and making it look more decrepit and falling apart.

Eric Pangilinan : First of all you have to start with design and think realistically. The layout of an office or the layout of a building or the layout of a shop, it has to fit a function in the design and we have to make it feel correct.

It’s like when you’re buying a home. You expect certain things to be in certain areas. Like you don’t just walk in and suddenly you’re in a toilet. Things have to be in the right place so we design it as if it’s in a real place. Then we think, “What would happen if we left this?”

Sometimes a designer will put a hole in the wall and we force ourselves to ask the question what created it. You can’t just put a hole there. What made that hole? If a ceiling collapsed we have to decide if it’s water damage… It has to start at the source even with our plants. They all have to start from somewhere…

Q: Where did you get the inspiration for the plant life taking over everything? I found the video sequence at the opening of the second part of the demo with all the over grown vehicles and cars in Pittsburgh really interesting.

Eric Pangilinan: There’s a lot of stuff. If you Google overgrown buildings and cities you’ll just get a billion of those. We wish we could do more but there are technological and gameplay limitations.